I've read and seen a lot of audio aficionados with weights on top of their components to eliminate any vibration. Does the material matter very much, as long as it's solid?
Yes, I could spend mega-bucks on state-of-the-art materials, but it seems a 2 or 5 lb. weight off a barbell should do the trick. Am I missing something here?
Of course, I don't want the weight to mar the cabinet, so should I use a silicon pad, or something similar, between the weight and the chassis?
Yes, I could spend mega-bucks on state-of-the-art materials, but it seems a 2 or 5 lb. weight off a barbell should do the trick. Am I missing something here?
Of course, I don't want the weight to mar the cabinet, so should I use a silicon pad, or something similar, between the weight and the chassis?
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There are people who say they can hear differences after shelling out $$$ on fancy stuff with better damping. For regular humans it’s usually sufficient to focus most of your effort on minimizing vibrations for turntables and some valves such as high gain pentodes. After that perhaps certain capacitors but you quickly get to diminishing returns. Of course this assumes you don’t have to first fix things that are done poorly such as loose wiring flapping around.
Any large, softback book (telephone directories used to work fine) can be trialed as a damping weight. If you can hear a difference, you can arrange a more aesthetically pleasing solution, if not you've wasted nothing. You can even A/B test it by asking someone to add/remove the book while you're blindfolded 